MILLY Parker says it’s lucky her acquired brain injury resulted from a car crash.
The Williamstown resident, 40, says life would have been totally different but for receiving disability funding and support from the Traffic Accident Commission.
Had she developed ABI from, say, falling from a roof or nearly drowning, Ms Parker says she would be struggling under an “appalling” government system instead of being covered by TAC.
On April 30, she will speak at Australia’s biggest national rally for people with disabilities, with simultaneous protests in six state capitals calling for action on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The federal government is yet to allocate funding for the NDIS.
Ms Parker says that on a bad day she suffers extreme exhaustion and migraines, and she can’t read or remember.
But she does remember the crash that changed her life – 19 years ago near Bendigo – as though it was yesterday.
After a night of partying at Shepparton, a car in which she and four friends were passengers hit a tree at about 140km/h.
“I remember waking up in the car and hearing this horrific sucking sound and then slowly becoming conscious, and then I realised that noise was coming from me,” Ms Parker said.
“It was me trying to breathe because my lungs were full of blood.
“I was considered so badly injured that the doctor at the scene had to do the triage and decided not to work on me [because they thought she wouldn’t make it].”
Later when the doctor told her what had happened, she thought: Oh my God, I was nearly dead.
“The helicopter – the air ambulance – came and got me, and I wasn’t expected to make it to The Alfred.
“But I did; I’m that stubborn.”
It’s this stubbornness that has driven Ms Parker to push for transforming the government system for people with a disability.
“The Every Australian Counts campaign has given the disability community a voice like nothing before,” she said.
“The appalling suffering – and I don’t think Australians realise what is actually going on out there – is just shameful.
“People with disabilities have been ignored for so long.
“The whole disability system as it stands is under-funded … people don’t get what they need to live a quality life, and I’m not talking golden wheelchairs; I’m talking about getting a shower on a daily basis.
“There are people who only get two or three showers a week.
“Or – this just staggers me – kids with disabilities aren’t given enough resources to go to school for a full week; they’ll have a carer or support person for two, maybe three, days a week.
“So what we’re effectively doing is stunting the intelligence of our kids with disabilities. If this happened to mainstream children there’d be a massive outcry.
“Kids won’t get the proper wheelchairs or support systems as they grow, so they’ll grow up with a bad back.
“The list just goes on … young people in nursing homes because there’s not the facilities for young people who need 24-hour care to go anywhere else … ‘
This final item on the list is an experience that has psychologically scarred Ms Parker for life. She spent the year following her crash as an outpatient in a nursing home.
“As a 21-year-old, you’d see the oldies who had died in the night being rolled out in black body bags.”
Ms Parker said carers had confessed to her that they had thought about ending their lives.
“I am incredibly lucky that I acquired my disability via a car accident and in Victoria [or] I’d have to rely on the government system as it stands which is in crisis and totally under-funded,” she said.
“Having been a TAC client, if I needed a wheelchair, bang, I’d get it.
“It’s just two different worlds.
“Why aren’t my mates who have MS not given the same resources as me, just through sheer luck that I was in a car accident?
“I can’t ignore it; it’s just so wrong. I want what I received for every Australian.”
The Every Australian Counts rally is at noon on April 30 at Federation Square.
